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Loneliness, social integration, and incident dementia over 6 years: Prospective findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing
journal contribution
posted on 2017-09-18, 14:01 authored by Snorri Bjorn Rafnsson, Martin Orrell, Eleonora d'Orsi, Eef HogervorstEef Hogervorst, Andrew SteptoeObjectives:
Social relationships are important for the maintenance of cognitive function at older ages, with both objective features of social networks and perceived social connections (loneliness) being relevant. There is limited evidence about how different aspects of social experience predict diagnosed dementia.
Methods:
The sample comprised 6,677 dementia-free individuals at baseline (2004) from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Baseline information on loneliness, number of close relationships, marital status, and social isolation (contact with family and friends and participation in organizations) was analyzed in relation to incident dementia over an average
6.25 years using Cox regression, controlling for potential confounding factors.
Results:
Two hundred twenty participants developed dementia during follow-up. In multivariable analyses, dementia risk was positively related to greater loneliness (hazard ratio 1.40, 95% confidence interval 1.09–1.80, p = .008), and inversely associated with number of close relationships (p < .001) and being married (p
= .018). Sensitivity analyses testing for reverse causality and different criteria for iagnosing dementia confirmed the robustness of these findings. There was no association
with social isolation.
Discussion:
Dementia risk is associated with loneliness and having fewer close relationships in later life. The underlying mechanisms remain to be elucidated, but efforts to enhance older peoples’ relationship quality may be relevant to dementia risk.
Funding
This work was supported by The Promoting Independence in Dementia (PRIDE) study funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and National Institute for Health Research (Grant ES/L001802/1). The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing is funded by the National Institute on Aging (Grant RO1AG7644) and by a consortium of UK government departments coordinated by the ESRC.
History
School
- Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences
Published in
The Journals of Gerontology: Series BVolume
75Issue
1Pages
114–124Citation
RAFNSSON, S.B. ...et al., 2017. Loneliness, social integration, and incident dementia over 6 years: Prospective findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 75(1), pp. 114–124.Publisher
© The author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological SocietyVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/Acceptance date
2017-06-13Publication date
2017-06-27Copyright date
2020Notes
This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Oxford University Press under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ISSN
1079-5014eISSN
1758-5368Publisher version
Language
- en